Xbox One allows independent publishing

[Rakehellion]

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/...elf-publishing-new-certification-process.aspx

This is a pretty significant and unprecedented step for console gaming.

One could cite that the Windows app stores weren't very successful, but I think this is what the Ouya should have been. This just may be the reason I purchase an Xbox One.

 

[KaOTiK]

Sony and Nintendo already allow this.

 

[lothar]

Sony and Nintendo already allow this.

What he said.

 

[badb0y]

lol, Op needs to do more research.

Microsoft is playing catch-up in this.

 

[DaveSimmons]

MS has been alienating indies left and right with their $40,000 patch fees and requirement that you go through a publisher, while Sony was promoting indies heavily at E3 this year.

This is another Xbox 180 not an innovation. But it's still good for X1 buyers that MS is making an effort to catch up.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Big Brother is watching you.

 

[blurredvision]

Big Brother is watching you.

Yep, better delete all your email accounts, cancel your cell phone, cancel your cable and throw out your computer completely.

 

[exdeath]

TrueCrypt ftw

 

[gorcorps]

This is a pretty significant and unprecedented step for MICROSOFT console gaming.

ftfy

 

[Nintendesert]

Once MS got rid of that douchebag-moron that's at Zynga they've been making much better decisions with the XBone. Good on the reorganization and good on Ballmer for listening to all of us real fans and our outcry for a better console experience.

 

[purbeast0]

while this is good for people who are indie devs and into those games, i can't say that this really matters to me personally. i've never checked out any indie games on ps3 or 360 so i doubt i'll do it on ps4 and x1.

 

[Skel]

while this is good for people who are indie devs and into those games, i can't say that this really matters to me personally. i've never checked out any indie games on ps3 or 360 so i doubt i'll do it on ps4 and x1.

This is how I know you're not a super-awesome elite gamer. This is the most important news ever.. it's the only way the super awesome hipster gamers can flaunt their awesomeness.. "I only play indie games... the rest are just too mainstream for kiddies. I'm too hardcore for that."

 

[purbeast0]

This is how I know you're not a super-awesome elite gamer. This is the most important news ever.. it's the only way the super awesome hipster gamers can flaunt their awesomeness.. "I only play indie games... the rest are just too mainstream for kiddies. I'm too hardcore for that."

damnit now i have to go /wrists tonight

 

[Truthslayer]

So, I didn't see it mentioned here, but CBOAT on Neogaf stated that it would be restricted to the Win 8 App store only, and with a limit of 3GB RAM usable. I'm rather off-put by this whole thing altogether now.

 

[cmdrdredd]

while this is good for people who are indie devs and into those games, i can't say that this really matters to me personally. i've never checked out any indie games on ps3 or 360 so i doubt i'll do it on ps4 and x1.

Indie games seem more at home on the PC anyway to me.

 

[KaOTiK]

So, I didn't see it mentioned here, but CBOAT on Neogaf stated that it would be restricted to the Win 8 App store only, and with a limit of 3GB RAM usable. I'm rather off-put by this whole thing altogether now.

Yeah I read it yesterday and just shook my head in disbelief that MS still fucks up. The funniest part of the whole situation is that this was going to be a big announcement for MS at Gamescon and they are angry at GI for leaking it lol.

 

[cmdrdredd]

So that means indie games will not be able to take full advantage of the system?

Seems like Sony still has the advantage for indie development. Maybe this is MS' way of saying "if you let us publish the game and pay us, then you can use the full capabilities of the system" which is kind of sad that they still can't get something right. At least I'm lucky enough to not really care much about indie games.

 

[KaOTiK]

So that means indie games will not be able to take full advantage of the system?

Seems like Sony still has the advantage for indie development. Maybe this is MS' way of saying "if you let us publish the game and pay us, then you can use the full capabilities of the system" which is kind of sad that they still can't get something right. At least I'm lucky enough to not really care much about indie games.

No clue if there are any other system resources they wont be allowed to access, but yes they will only be able to make use of 3GB of the 5GB available.

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

Have heard from a few devs that based on information they've received, this comes with a fair number of caveats and indie games will indeed be shuffled off into their own space on the OS partition as opposed to being a part of the main XBLA space. Guess we'll see how true any of that is once this is up and running. MS has said it won't be available at launch, so it'll be into next year anyway before any of this becomes a thing. Hopefully MS makes it easier to develop on their platform, the 360 started out as a pretty good indie console, but MS really muddied the waters the last 2-3 years. Indies being able to self publish on as many platforms as possible means more money for those indies to make more games. Almost no indie sees the sort of success someone like Notch has seen.

 

[KaOTiK]

Have heard from a few devs that based on information they've received, this comes with a fair number of caveats and indie games will indeed be shuffled off into their own space on the OS partition as opposed to being a part of the main XBLA space. Guess we'll see how true any of that is once this is up and running. MS has said it won't be available at launch, so it'll be into next year anyway before any of this becomes a thing. Hopefully MS makes it easier to develop on their platform, the 360 started out as a pretty good indie console, but MS really muddied the waters the last 2-3 years. Indies being able to self publish on as many platforms as possible means more money for those indies to make more games. Almost no indie sees the sort of success someone like Notch has seen.

Basically I've seen it as being described as how the current indie game channel is treated on live, ie third rate.

 

[Skel]

Basically I've seen it as being described as how the current indie game channel is treated on live, ie third rate.

Are you an indie game dev? Could you explain how this restriction hinders development? I'm honestly not attempting to start a fight, but you're the most outspoken person in this thread on how negative this limitation is so I figured you might know.

I read before on how the system is doing multitasking on a lot of it, so this limitation could be something to ensure that functions as designed. Indie devs, while awesome people, aren't known for their cleanliness in resource use so it could very well be a thing where MS is hedging their bets on the system as a whole working as they want it to.

 

[KaOTiK]

Are you an indie game dev? Could you explain how this restriction hinders development? I'm honestly not attempting to start a fight, but you're the most outspoken person in this thread on how negative this limitation is so I figured you might know.

I read before on how the system is doing multitasking on a lot of it, so this limitation could be something to ensure that functions as designed. Indie devs, while awesome people, aren't known for their cleanliness in resource use so it could very well be a thing where MS is hedging their bets on the system as a whole working as they want it to.

I'm just going off of what I've heard as well. AS Truthslayer above mentioned what CBOAT has stated on the issue. CBOAT is a user on the Neogaf forums who leaks a lot of info on things and is right a very very high % of the time. He hits it on the head often and frequently enough that when he says something you can pretty much believe it. So while it is technically rumor, his history gives him the credibility that believe him.

Basically from what I understand with the info that is currently out and know, if an indie dev wants to self publish on the X1 they have to pay MS like $100 fee to unlock debug mode on their X1 (which allows them to run unsigned code on the system which they would need to do to get their game running on the system). They would be restricted in the amount of RAM they are allowed to use on the X1. While any other dev that is not self published will have access to 5GB of RAM for their games, a self publisher indie will only be allowed 3GB of RAM. Also, they will be regulated to the Windows 8 app store instead of the Xbox Live Arcade store where other games that have a publisher will be listed.

So MS from what we know, now will allow self publishing from Indie's but they are limiting the amount of the system they can use (that other developers with publishers have access too) and are putting them in a different part of Xbox Live not with the other games (that have publishers). Which means besides being handicapped on a tech level, they are being punished by having their games hidden somewhere else away from the rest of the other games.



The multitasking and stuff you mentioned has nothing to do with this as that is part of the X1's OS's and MS has a reserved amount of resources for it that no game developer can touch. MS has stated that the X1 will reserve 3GB of RAM for itself (The PS4 we do not have a number on yet, but it is probably between 1GB-1.5GB from previous info we had), we don't know how much of the other resources are reserved just for the system but it is rumored that 2 of the cpu cores and around 10% of the GPU are reserved for the system itself (same rough numbers for the PS4). What does that mean? So when they (system makers) announce the specs of their consoles, those are the specs of the machine, but they reserve some of those system resources for the machines use only thus the amount of resources/specs available to the developer is less than what the overall amount of the systems specs are.

 

[Bateluer]

After Microsoft attempting to rake X1 buyers over the coals, I'm shocked, appalled, and saddened that there's anyone left that actually wants to buy the thing.

 

[Skel]

I'm just going off of what I've heard as well. AS Truthslayer above mentioned what CBOAT has stated on the issue. CBOAT is a user on the Neogaf forums who leaks a lot of info on things and is right a very very high % of the time. He hits it on the head often and frequently enough that when he says something you can pretty much believe it. So while it is technically rumor, his history gives him the credibility that believe him.

Basically from what I understand with the info that is currently out and know, if an indie dev wants to self publish on the X1 they have to pay MS like $100 fee to unlock debug mode on their X1 (which allows them to run unsigned code on the system which they would need to do to get their game running on the system). They would be restricted in the amount of RAM they are allowed to use on the X1. While any other dev that is not self published will have access to 5GB of RAM for their games, a self publisher indie will only be allowed 3GB of RAM. Also, they will be regulated to the Windows 8 app store instead of the Xbox Live Arcade store where other games that have a publisher will be listed.

So MS from what we know, now will allow self publishing from Indie's but they are limiting the amount of the system they can use (that other developers with publishers have access too) and are putting them in a different part of Xbox Live not with the other games (that have publishers). Which means besides being handicapped on a tech level, they are being punished by having their games hidden somewhere else away from the rest of the other games.



The multitasking and stuff you mentioned has nothing to do with this as that is part of the X1's OS's and MS has a reserved amount of resources for it that no game developer can touch. MS has stated that the X1 will reserve 3GB of RAM for itself (The PS4 we do not have a number on yet, but it is probably between 1GB-1.5GB from previous info we had), we don't know how much of the other resources are reserved just for the system but it is rumored that 2 of the cpu cores and around 10% of the GPU are reserved for the system itself (same rough numbers for the PS4). What does that mean? So when they (system makers) announce the specs of their consoles, those are the specs of the machine, but they reserve some of those system resources for the machines use only thus the amount of resources/specs available to the developer is less than what the overall amount of the systems specs are.

Thanks for the write up. Do the Devs have to get some kind of cert in order to even publish to the Xbox One? I don't know enough about how it works together to really understand how or why MS went this way. I do know I don't really play indie games myself so not sure how or if this affects me.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

Its hilarious seeing Microsoft follow up on everything Sony announced with the PS4, after realizing what a failure their new console was

The only reason you could possibly want to buy it is for exclusives, but then again, that goes for consoles in general (as opposed to pc gaming)